ThaiSmiths: July 2012

Darrel and I flew to Kuching, Malaysia (on the island of Borneo) for six days this July to attend the Rain Forest World Music Festival held July 13-15.

Borneo is the third largest island in the world, and is located north of Java, Indonesia. It’s divided among three countries: Brunei, Indonesia and Malaysia. It is home to one of the oldest rainforests in the world, and is a natural habitat for the endangered orangutan. Darrel and I had been to the southern part of Borneo in 2008 to see orangutans, and very much looked forward to our second visit.

Before I tell you about that trip, let me back up a bit and tell you about us becoming temporary landlubbers.

On May 1, CanKata entered Ao Po Marina and was securely fastened to the dock for a six-month rest while we moved into our unit at the Dewa Phuket Resort (pronounced “day-wah poo-ket”).

We’ve had no trouble adapting to life on land. Without boat chores, we have a bit more time on our hands, and have found lots of ways to fill that time. Here’s a short list of our landlubber activities: biking, visiting with the locals, swimming in the pool, going to the Dewa gym, and playing darts. We have continued activities that we were able to do while living on the boat: eating out at Thai restaurants regularly, going to the local market, studying the Thai language, playing chess, doing puzzles, and watching movies. But now we don’t have to launch the dinghy, consult tide tables, worry about the surf, and drag our heavy tender to the high-tide line. And we regularly have ice and ice cream!

Darrel planning his next chess move.

However, we do miss sleeping on the boat and having the fresh ocean breeze coming through our hatch, the unobstructed view of the sky, the privacy, the quiet, and being able to jump into the sea whenever we feel like it.

So for six months, we are making the most of being able to immerse ourselves a little deeper into Thai culture. AND … we are taking advantage of CanKata being safely tucked into a marina by booking a few trips away. This blog entry is about our trip to Borneo for the music festival.

We flew out on July 12 with Steve and Julie from the catamaran “Aqua Dreams”. The next morning, we met up with my cousin Elaine who flew in to Kuching from England. We were all set to immerse ourselves in world music for three full days.

“World” music has traditional roots with a dominant ethnic identity, is often blended with contemporary influences and often involves exotic instruments. At the RFWMF, the music was Celtic, African, Basque, gypsy, from the Indian Ocean, Brazil, Mongolia, France, Palestine, with an Asian melting pot band, East European ethno-rock, and of course lots of Malaysian bands.

Without doubt, the most amazing performance was by “Khusugtun” from Mongolia – five musicians selected from the Mongolian national orchestra who played their traditional string and wind instruments and who “wowed” us with their throat singing. They were absolutely amazing and all reports indicate that they were the favourite of nearly everyone (30,000 over the three days).

Besides the main stage performances from roughly 7 p.m. until 12:30 a.m., we were also able to attend nine of twenty-seven workshops that were being held earlier in the day. Three were given at each time slot (thrice daily), and we couldn’t figure out which would be the best, so we made our decision based on venue: we picked the spot with the comfy seats and air-conditioning. We weren’t disappointed. Probably all the workshops were worth attending, but we did enjoy the added comfort. We got to play a traditional Malaysian instrument, make an effort to throat-sing with the Mongolians, and learned lots more about world music while avoiding the sultry heat.

After the music festival, the five of us toured Kuching, which I’m tempted to call a pretty little city but must admit that it’s big – over 600,000 strong. Our hotel rooms were right on the river front near large department stores, big hotels and scads of shops, but there was definitely a small-town feel about the place. Street traffic was quiet, the river traffic was mostly quiet sampans, there were very few howling dogs (unlike Thailand), entertainment shut down early, and even the weather was quiet. The only time we needed to use transportation was to cross the river on the sampan. Everything else was within walking distance.

On our last day, we booked a tour to a national park to see a group of orangutans that are being “rehabilitated” – i.e. they have been saved from a deforested area or from previous capture and are being prepared to be set free in another part of the forest. They are amazing creatures and gave us a tremendous show of their ability to swing through the trees. But their habitat, the rainforest, continues to shrink, and I really don’t know what the future holds for them.

We had a great trip home to Thailand – just two flights that took one-and-a-half hours each. We are able to get such cheap flights in this part of the world, and now that we are back home we are planning some more trips. High on the list: more music festivals!

Shortly after arriving home, we were invited by a Thai friend (Wundee, who normally speaks to us patiently in Thai and teaches us something new every day) to visit her house. She had obviously been well-coached and carefully said to us in English, “I would like to invite you to my home” (difficult for her since Thais don’t use the letter “v”). So we arranged a day and time. She mentioned something in Thai about “Buddhist” but we misunderstood and thought she had a day off because of a Buddhist holiday. We were wrong. What was actually happening was that seven Buddhist monks were blessing her house that day, and we were very fortunate to be there while the blessing took place. We were even invited to “make merit” by offering up rice. We were warned to cover our ears when the firecrackers were lit (to ward off evil spirits and bad luck, I suppose), and after the blessing Wundee gave us a tour of her large garden with all its lovely natural herbs, fruit trees and mushrooms. It was an honour to be invited into a Thai home.

Checking out Wundee's mushrooms.

A respectful pose for a Buddhist blessing.

Wishing peace, happiness and musical days to you all.

Best regards from Loretta and Darrel – temporary landlubbers in Thailand

Photos follow.
For a few more photos, click on "Our blog for T andT".
Most photographs were taken by Darrel.